Ronit Baranga Brings Objects to Life in Cringe-Worthy Sculptures

Though the clay works of Ronit Baranga, featured here on our blog, have been described as chill-inducing, frightening, and even repulsive, the Israeli artist doesn’t see her work this way. Her sculptures animate every day objects such as dishes, tea cups, and saucers, offering them the ability to express the full spectrum of human emotions. Even her humanoid figures sprout new body parts as if their skin has a mind of its own.

“I took the simple utensil- the utensil we take for granted, the passive utensil- and I gave it the limbs with which we use it. So, now the utensil is in a different place. It is active. It can decide whether to use itself, whether to allow me to use it, or whether to run away,” she explains. Her tableware pieces were on display most recently at Bansky’s Dismaland park, covered here.

Baranga’s newer works also express an undercurrent of pain, violence, joy, and tranquility. One of her latest pieces, entitled “My Artemis”, features a goddess grinning maniacally with joy, whose chest piece grows mouths with tongues sticking out in hunger. “She is a Goddess Mother, castrating and never letting go. Regardless, it is certain that her breasts are no longer feeding; they are the ones that eat,” she says of the piece. To the artist, who relates her work as existing on the edge between the living and still life, emotions are not black and white but are expressed simultaneously. “At some point, everything is synchronized. It’s never all beautiful or all bad.”